The Incredible O.C. Time Warp

By Andy Meisler

You no doubt remember exactly where you were during our most historic or traumatic cultural cataclysms. But what were you doing—and who were you?—the last time you fumbled with an unwieldy fondue fork? When the last tricked-out VW Beetle disappeared from your cul-de-sac? When you wore a pair of leg warmers, or Doc Martens, or Earth Shoes without irony?

It’s impossible to say exactly why certain pastimes and fashions ripple across popular culture, or why they fade away. World-shaking events may fill our history books (and channels), but the fads with which we’re momentarily infatuated also tell the story of who we are. While most people assume that fads die, that’s not entirely true. They morph, evolve, and sometimes even resurface.

And, to a startling degree, they do so in Orange County.

The place is teeming with former fads and the people who keep them alive. It’s a fertile field for hunting down, say, a Pete Seeger fan, a racquetball ace, or a collector of Atari game cartridges. Go ahead, Google them. They’re out there. Still.

But, there were some disappointments during our search. Rumors proved groundless that Orange County has a viable local community that speaks Esperanto, the international language that reached the height of its popularity shortly after World War I. We had trouble finding local dealers for the once-hot artwork of LeRoy Neiman and Margaret “Big-Eyed Children” Keane. Reports of a new form of roller disco called “jam skating” proved mostly hype. There was no reply from The Orange County Dungeons & Dragons Meetup Group. The O.C. citizens-band community maintained radio silence.

Still, our pursuit of former fads and faddists in Orange County yielded priceless dividends. In short, those still-breathing fads provided a window into the past. Anyone who likes what they see can climb through, and, at least for a while, close it firmly behind them.

Well-Aged Wine, Part 1
How about a little Blue Nun? That iconic nectar of the ’70s-era Good Life is still available at some wine and liquor retailers countywide, including BevMo in Costa Mesa. 1835 Newport Blvd., Suite B-129, Costa Mesa, 949-548-4919, www.bevmo.com.

First-Generation Video Games
At 38, Mike Kennedy is a little long in the tooth for, say, Second Life or Grand Theft Auto IV. But Pong? Space Invaders? Asteroids? Ms. Pacman? “I guess I’m trying to reclaim my youth, get the things that I wanted back then,” he says. “Well, now I have everything I wanted.” Indeed, the Trabuco Canyon resident and sales manager is an antiques dealer of sorts and social director for a small-but-thriving group of first-generation video game enthusiasts. He spends his weekends scouring local flea markets and swap meets for game consoles and cartridges made in the late ’70s and early ’80s by long-dormant companies such as Atari, Intellivision, and ColecoVision. He auctions the surplus on his Web site, hosts a weekly podcast called “Auction Talk” through his site, and holds monthly gaming parties for 15 to 20 of his fellow collector-players. He’s into this pastime for the long haul. “You know,” he says, “these game cartridges are all solid-state. No moving parts. They’ll still be working a hundred years from now.” www.chasethechuckwagon.com.

Punk Footwear
Nostalgic for grunge and punk? You might want to pop in at Shoeteria, which recently boasted a very small wall display of Doc Martens. Shoeteria, 1922 W. Lincoln Blvd., Anaheim, 714-776-7299.

Pre-Punk Footwear
Earth Shoes, for those of you who came in late, are shoes with heels lower than the toes—the result of 40 years of thinking by Danish visionary Anne Kalso. She theorized that many ailments of modern society are caused by the spinal misalignments created by our addiction to leaning forward while shod. Earth Shoes were sold in this country from 1973 to ’76; a series of international lawsuits kept genuine Earth Shoes off the market until recently. When the brand became available here again, Mark Sims of Huntington Beach, a marketing man and an original Earth Shoe devotee, and his wife quickly opened two shoe-box-sized outlets in O.C. that sell Earth Shoes exclusively. His current inventory includes men’s and women’s tennis and dress shoes, wingtips, and flip-flops. Says Sims: “Earth Shoes are as good-looking as any shoes you’ll find anywhere.” World of Earth Footwear, 1273 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach, 949-376-2225; and 18569 Main St., Huntington Beach.



Road Torpedoes
Many assume the aluminum-skinned, hand-riveted Airstream—that icon of the American highway during the era of 30-cent-a-gallon gas, Studebakers, and teepee motels—is no longer being produced. But no, they still make them, and you, too, can own one of these silver torpedoes, brand-new, just like Matthew McConaughey, Tom Hanks, or Pamela Anderson. “We sell about 60 to 70 a year,” says Dave Delano, sales manager at Southwest Coaches, Orange County’s exclusive Airstream dealer for the past 13 years. All you need to do, he says, is spend about two or three times what an equivalent-size “square box” trailer would cost. He’s got everything from one-bed Bambis to sell-the-house-and-rent-a-post-office-box Classic Limited Travel Trailers in stock. And his sales pitch is as fresh as tomorrow: “Airstreams have 20 percent less wind resistance than their competitors.” Imagine the gas you’ll save. Southwest Coaches, 6441 Burt Road Lots 42 & 43, Irvine, 949-551-8597, www.southwestcoaches.com.

Folk Music
Tom Paxton. Dave Van Ronk. Phil Ochs. Buffy St. Marie. If you’re old enough to recognize these names you’re old enough to remember how Bob Dylan blew them into pop music irrelevance by simply plugging his guitar into an amplifier. Folk music has had a particularly hard time in Orange County since the mid-’60s. Never a hotbed, it has been sufficiently nurtured by live performances at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica and by “A Prairie Home Companion” on NPR. Still, The Living Tradition, a nonprofit begun in 1982, has worked hard to organize folk music jams, contra dances, and once-a-month concerts. For the last few years the concerts have been booked and produced by Steve Dulson, a warehouse manager at an Orange County developmental center who fell in love with folk while growing up in England. “I heard ‘Tom Dooley’ on the radio and was hooked,” he says. He admits he can’t attract the same nationally recognized talent as Mc-Cabe’s, but books under-the-radar groups at Anaheim’s Downtown Community Center. The third-Saturday-of-the-month concerts usually attract several hundred listeners, a good percentage sporting gray ponytails and/or white Smith Brothers-type beards. And, yes, fresh cookies are available for 50 cents. The Living Tradition, 949-946-1964, www.thelivingtradition.org.

Well-Aged Wine, Part 2
Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers can still be found at liquor stores, supermarkets, and larger pharmacies countywide, including Ralphs, CVS, Superior Super Warehouse, and Smart & Final. Thank you for your continuing support.

Leg Warmers
“Flashdance,” the 1983 box-office hit starring Jennifer Beals, pushed leg warmers out of the dance studio and made them a female fashion staple for a year or two. These days, says Ellie Booms of Discount Dance Supply, a new generation of women is taking to a new generation of more sedately colored and patterned synthetic-blend descendants. Most of the chain’s stores have a leg-warmer display. Discount Dance Supply, 1501 N. Raymond Ave., Suite E, Anaheim, 714-999-0955; 24801 Alicia Parkway, Suite B, Laguna Hills, 949-770-7107; and 1931 N. Tustin Ave., Santa Ana, 714-835-7275; www.discountdance.com.

Slot cars
In the ’60s, millions of young boys fell in love with scale-model racers energized by a direct current passing from grooves in a model racetrack through swiveling metal pickups on the cars’ undersides. Speed was controlled by rheostats attached to a trackside transformer. At first the fun was confined to small tracks in basements and rumpus rooms. Then entrepreneurs began building large tracks and charging hobbyists by the hour to run and compete on them. At the crest of this wave in 1968, there were about 5,000 public slot-car tracks in the United States.

Enter the proto-techies. A few began building their own cars using hopped-up motors that turned at 90,000 rpm, put out an astounding 500 grams of torque, and cost $250 apiece. Most teens took their off-the-shelf Mustangs and Formula One cars and went home. By 1978, the number of tracks nationwide was down to 250. But 17 years ago, Chris Diego, a veteran of the lumber business, hand-built his first Orange County slot-car raceway. He now has three, and his newest, in a squat, sun-faded building near Knott’s Berry Farm, sports three road courses and a drag strip.

A recent decision to institute a “retro” racing class limited to stock motors and bodies has brought out a new batch of veterans on weekends. The action is hot and heavy, with dozens of laser-focused near-retirees expertly squeezing their pistol-grip controllers. Buena Park Raceway, 6161 Lincoln Ave., Buena Park, 714-827-9979, www.bparkraceway.com.





Hula Hooping
Call it the great circle of life. A modified version of the Hula Hoop recently became the centerpiece of a new form of organized exercise called Hoopnotica. Instructor Kay Braun (“The only certified Hoopdance instructor in Orange County …”) is available for individual or group classes at various park and beach locations throughout the county. 714-686-3385, www.hoopenchantment.com.

Fondue
It comes to us from the huts of old Switzerland, where hungry peasants would reclaim their hardened cheeses by melting them in communal pots, adding wine, and using a long fork to dip squares of stale bread into the mix. The ’60s and ’70s saw a vigorous nationwide craze for fondue parties, until California Cuisine—and the notion that eating cholesterol-coated starches might not be a great idea—relegated it to the back burner in the ’80s. The local fondue fad simmered by way of a smallish, medium-priced national chain called The Melting Pot, which has outlets in Brea, Irvine, and San Clemente. But it started to bubble again when former Silicon Valley microchip salesman Michael Soares rented a decommissioned IHOP across the street from Mission San Juan Capistrano and invested his nest egg in La Fondue, which has been open for two years. Dinner for two can run $100, with fondue prepared by friendly waitpersons on a table grill, and dippable savories that include Calamari Steak, Savage Wild Duck, and Tuna Saku. Dessert? Melted chocolate for dipping. La Fondue’s average table turnover is a civilized two and a half hours. “We get wonderful cards and letters,” Soares says. “People say it reminds them of the long, communicative family dinners they used to have together. And their old avocado-green fondue pots.” La Fondue, 31761 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, 949-240-0300, www.lafondue.com.

Racquetball
Millions took up the game in the ’70s as a cheaper and easier-to-learn alternative to tennis, but by the mid-’80s, baby boomers began graduating to golf and other fitness pursuits. Private gyms began ripping out racquetball courts, replacing them with aerobics studios, weight machines, and treadmills. But while the fickle multitudes tossed their racquets into their attics, die-hard enthusiasts retreated to YMCAs and municipal handball courts from whence the game had come. Thanks to boosters such as Son Nguyen, the sport is making a modest comeback.

“Welcome to the mecca of West Coast racquetball,” says Nguyen, a 36-year-old Garden Grove firefighter, top-rated player, and tournament organizer. He’s sitting on a park bench across from the eight-court outdoor complex at Marina Park in Huntington Beach, where a major tournament takes place about once a month, and the courts are at capacity every weekend, he says. In July, the World Outdoor Championships (Nguyen was one of the organizers) drew nearly 2,000 spectators, many attracted by the nation’s top-rated singles player, Newport Beach native Rocky Carson.

Sanctioning bodies and equipment makers put the world’s number of regular players at nearly the same 6 million figure of the early ’80s. The sport has had recent exposure on The Tennis Channel and ESPN Classic, Nguyen says, and several smaller chains and private gyms are putting racquetball courts back in.

He prefers the outdoor game, with fresh air, wind, and sunshine—but without the back walls that keep loose balls from straying: “That’s why you bring your children and friends along with you.” Marina Park, 15871 Graham St., Huntington Beach, www.worldoutdoorracquetball.com.

Rolfing
If they’d conducted a poll 30 years ago to gauge which New Age practice was least likely to survive the ’70s, there’s no doubt Rolfing would have finished near the top. A system of “structural integration” consisting of “soft-tissue manipulation,” it’s a healing process invented by biochemist Ida Rolf—which had (and mostly still has) the reputation of being so painful it caused even the strongest and most centered of men to scream, relive their worst childhood memories, and cry for their mothers.

But here we are in 2008, sitting in the tasteful, Asian-themed Costa Mesa office suite of a certified advanced Rolfer named Christopher Amodeo. And he’s smiling. “There are more Rolfers today than there’ve ever been,” says the 47-year old graduate of the Rolf Institute of Boulder, Colo.

An informal local spokesman for the practice, Amodeo is happy to discuss the history of his discipline between visits from the six or seven clients he sees each day—none of whom, he says, has felt even a twinge of discomfort from his treatments. Many early ’70s clients, the type who hung out at Esalen and Indian ashrams, “were into intensity.” He says. “They wanted change and they wanted it now,” hence Rolfing’s undeserved reputation for torture. “After that, we sort of dropped off the cultural radar.”

Which was good, he adds, because Rolfers could quietly continue their practice as a gentler, more subtle attack on misalignment of the body and its resulting ailments. “We work with you,” Amodeo says, “not on you.” Christopher Amodeo, 234 E. 17th St., Suite 209, Costa Mesa, 949-646-7653, rolmeamodeo@sbcglobal.net.

The Harvey Wallbanger
One of several origin stories claims that a Newport Beach bartender named Bill Doner invented this ur-’70s cocktail. Most professional mixologists can still whip one up, and it’s on the cocktail menu at A Restaurant in Newport Beach. Want to make one yourself? Pour 1 ounce vodka and 4 ounces orange juice into a glass. Float ½ ounce of Galliano on top. Garnish with lemon or orange slice.

Surf music
Before the Beach Boys there was surf music: Born in Southern California, it was strictly instrumental, highly melodic, reverb-heavy rock played on Fender guitars and amplifiers, and performed by the still-revered likes of Dick Dale, Eddie and the Showmen, and the Surfaris. In 1961, overflow crowds of a thousand or more regularly crammed the Rendezvous Ballroom on Balboa Peninsula to dance the surfer stomp. Then came the British Invasion and the vocal genius of Brian Wilson & Co., and suddenly it was over. That’s how Joe Kurkowski remembers it.

As a kid guitarist and surfer growing up in Orange County, Kurkowski loved surf music passionately, but when its time was up, he promptly turned away from it. “I mean, c’mon, The Beatles?” says Kurkowski, now 56. “Nobody had ever heard anything like them.”

But fast forward to 1993, when Kurkowski and several of his still-surfing musician buddies started jamming to the surf rock of the Kennedy administration, and shortly thereafter, five of the participants—all San Clemente residents whose day jobs range from construction work to building microchips—formed The Eliminators, named after a popular model of longboard.

The Eliminators haven’t exactly led a nationwide surf music renaissance, but they’ve kept the sound alive with occasional gigs in and around Orange County, made a few well-received CDs, and performed background music for several TV series and commercials. Most importantly, they’re writing new music. While they do a mean “Hawaii Five-O” theme, about 80 percent of their set list is original. They keep in touch with the old guard, too. “Eddie Bertrand [of Eddie and the Showmen] and those other guys really like us,” says Kurkowski. “I guess they feel we’re putting them back on the map.” The Eliminators are managed by Tim Ferrill, 740-580-1605. Sample their music at www.myspace.com/theeliminatorssurfband.

Tomorrow’s Throwback Today Seven years ago, inventor Dean Kamen got the nation’s techies and news media hyperventilating about a mysterious device he promised would change the world. He code-named it “IT” and unveiled it in December 2001. Designed to whiz pedestrians along at 12.5 mph, it was an electric, gyroscopically balanced, two-wheeled scooter called the Segway.

The world, preoccupied with more traumatic events that year, yawned. It didn’t help that Kamen’s marketing plan was problematic: People could only buy the $5,000 vehicle from the factory or via Amazon.com, and they had to complete a mandatory three-hour instructional and safety course at a local hotel before taking the device home.

A few early adopters bit hard. One was Dick Burke, an Orange County-based satellite-dish dealer who saw his first Segway at Disney’s Epcot in Florida. “I had to have one,” he says. By April 2003, Burke not only had managed to pry a Segway from the company (plus one for his wife, Janice), he’d persuaded the firm to make him one of the nation’s first three distributors, right here in Orange County.

During the next few years, the county was practically overrun by—well, not quite. These days Southern California’s most visible Segway hot spot is Newport Beach, where cops roll their beats. Burke and partner Jim Headley operate out of a small store in the Anaheim Hills area. They won’t say how many units they’ve sold, but they will say they keep 10 to 20 in stock, and have seen a 50 percent sales increase since gas prices soared.

They’d love to equip a prominent local police force or other municipal agency, Headley says, but at least 85 percent of sales are to individuals. They’ve sold Segways to baseball players Bengie Molina and Jim Edmunds, and actor Brian Austin Green. Another interesting market segment: Laguna Woods, formerly known as Leisure World. “The ladies like to ride them from their condos to their bridge games,” says Headley, who also has the maintenance contract for the Segways at the World of Tomorrow at Disney’s California Adventure and Disneyland Resort.

But most of us go months without spotting a Segway in Orange County. Headley has an answer for that, too: “Unless you own, say, a Lexus, you don’t really notice the other ones. But when you start driving one you start spotting other ones like crazy.” Segway Orange County, 1187 N. Tustin Ave., Anaheim, 714-630-7296, www.segwayorangecounty.com.

Original VW Beetles The nation’s last, new, original-style VW Beetle sedan sold in 1977. For years afterward, the local freeways and driveways were filled with well-preserved—and often quirkily customized—Bugs. Cars don’t rust in this climate, so why don’t you see them anymore? “They went to Japan,” says Lenny Copp, 59, founder and owner of West Coast Classic Restoration of Fullerton, Orange County’s ground zero for serious vintage VW collectors.

In 1982, the VW fanatic and master mechanic drove his wife, son and all their possessions from Colorado to California in a blue 1958 Beetle—top speed 48 mph. In 1986, he was approached by a businessman from Japan—then in the midst of a real estate bubble—who said he’d pay top dollar for any reasonably restored Beetle that Copp could stuff into a shipping container. Original Beetles, it seemed, were the rage among Japanese car buffs waving fistfuls of strong yen. When the bubble burst in 1993, Copp was near bankruptcy, but by the mid-’90s his new Web site had hooked him up with wealthy Bug collectors worldwide. (Today, thanks to the strong euro, he’s shipping VWs back to—believe it or not—Germany and the rest of Europe.)

He has nine employees and a two-and-a-half-year backlog of Bugs, Kombis, and Karmann Ghias—that’s Jerry Seinfeld’s lavender-painted beauty out back—awaiting $30,000 to $40,000 in restorations. He’ll do everything from rebuild your motor to re-upholster in the original cloth. And for admirers of the marque who can only afford, say, a clapped-out Plymouth Reliant, he suggests the vicarious thrill of visiting the monthly rally sponsored by Der Kleiner Panzers, O.C.’s biggest VW collector club.

West Coast Classic Restoration, 1002 E. Walnut Ave., Fullerton, 714-871-1322, www.classicvws.com; Der Kleiner Panzers cruise night is the first Friday of the month at Nick’s Superburgers, 1712 W. Orangethorpe Ave., Fullerton, www.dkpcarclub.com.


Andy Meisler is an Orange Coast contributing writer.